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Blackberrying adventures

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

I’d like to make some blackberry wine, so I went to a lane near where I live to pick some only to find there weren’t any. I’m not sure if I was too early, too late or if someone else had got there first.

When I told my friend Jenny about it, she offered to take me somewhere she knew where she thought there would be lots of them. It was a lovely walk through fields and over stiles in beautiful countryside, and eventually we got to the blackberry bushes. But they weren’t much better! I was expecting big juicy blackberries that I could pick lots of in a short time. There were some, but not many and they were small and hard. I decided not to pick any as I thought they wouldn’t be sweet enough for making wine.

Jenny picked enough to make a blackberry pie. That didn’t take long and we were soon retracing our steps through fields and over stiles. We just had one more field to cross before we reached the lane where the car was parked, when a large chestnut horse came trotting out of a shed and headed straight for us. He wasn’t there when we went the other way.

I was getting anxious because he was so big and was coming at us so fast. I moved over and stood by the hedge hoping he’d ignore me, but he didn’t. His head was taller than me and I found him quite intimidating. I knew I had to try and keep calm and not panic. I stroked his nose and talked to him, then I decided I needed to make a move. I walked past him steadily but not too quickly, and started heading across the field to the stile.

I hoped he would let me go and trot back to his shed, but he didn’t. He followed me, and I could feel the weight of his head on the rucksack I was wearing as he nibbled at it. I slipped it off one shoulder and swung it round so that I could hold it in my arms as I continued to head for the stile.

Still he didn’t leave me. As I walked, his nose was against my back. At this point Jenny decided she’d better do something, and she gave him her bucket of blackberries. That kept him occupied for a few minutes which gave us both time to get over the stile to safety. I was so relieved to reach the lane.

Thank you Jenny for giving up your blackeberry pie to save me from a very scary situation.

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Home grown salad

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

Home grown salad

Last year, I grew some runner beans. I enjoyed watching them grow, and I loved being able to walk down to the bottom of the garden, pick them, cook them and eat them straight away with all their freshness and flavour intact.

This year, I decided I’d expand my vegetable garden. I’m growing runner beans again, but I’m also trying courgettes, beetroot, lettuce, parsley and coriander. I already had mint and sage.

This salad is made from a couple of beetroot leaves and a few lettuce leaves cut from the growing lettuce. I’ve added some chunks of cheese, some sunflower seeds, and half an orange pepper.

It was lovely – fresh and tasty, and it was so nice that I had prepared it from leaves I had just picked in the garden.

I think I’m going to enjoy growing vegetables!

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Half a cup of coffee

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

At most social occasions or meetings a cup of tea or coffee is offered. I like my tea quite strong with not much milk, so I’m quite wary of tea that someone else has made, because most people don’t drink it like that, and so they don’t make it like that. I just can’t drink weak milky tea. To me, it’s revolting! So I usually choose coffee. Although it’s often made with cheap, poor quality instant coffee, and doesn’t taste very nice, I find it easier to drink poor coffee than poor tea.

I’ve recently started asking for half a mug because I need something because I’m thirsty, but I don’t need a whole mugful, especially when it isn’t very nice. I thought it would be a good idea. It would cool down quickly enough for me to be able to drink it, and it wouldn’t be wasteful. It should have been a good idea, but it wasn’t.

I’ve found that everyone that I’ve asked for half a mug of coffee has carefully measured out half a spoonful of instant coffee granules, and then filled up the mug with hot water hardly leaving any room for milk. I’ll be saying ‘that’s enough thank you’, and they keep on filling it up. So now instead of having a strong mug of indifferent flavoured coffee that’s drinkable, I have an extemely weak coffee that’s horrible. I wonder what part of half a mugful people don’t understand?

Today I thought I’d got it under control. I’d been chatting, and was late getting my drink. It was being cleared away, but I was told I could help myself. Great! I can make a proper half mugful that’s strong enough to make it drinkable. I put in the coffee, and started pouring in the hot water from one of those flask jugs that you push down at the top. A young girl had been helping with the coffee, and she came over and started to help me push down the button.

I’d rather have done it myself, but I thought I might as well let her do it. When it was half full, I said ‘that’s enough, thanks’, but she carried on. I said several more time that I’d got enough, but still she carried on pressing the button until the mug was filled to the top, hardly leaving any room for milk. Oh dear! I suppose I could have put some more coffee in, but I didn’t want a whole mugful. So I just had a couple of sips, and then threw the rest down the sink.

I’ll have to try choosing a cup instead of a mug. That might solve the problem.

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Posted in food, life | 4 Comments »

A slice of porridge

Monday, May 10th, 2010

I often have a bowl of porridge for breakfast. It’s quick and easy to cook in the microwave, it’s good for me and it’s warming and comforting to eat especially when the weather is cold like it has been this winter.

This morning, I didn’t have a lot of milk so I used a bit less than usual, but I knew that would be alright if I didn’t leave it too long before eating it. I also decided to use a different bowl from the one I usually use. It’s wider and shallower.

I gave it it’s usual 2 minutes in the microwave, and left it for a couple of minutes before it would be ready and cool enough to eat.

Then the phone rang. It was my friend Annie phoning to discuss the cardmaking workshop we were running in the afternoon. Amidst thoughts of designs and papers and what equipment we needed, all thoughts of porridge went out of my head.

By the time we had sorted everything out, I must have been on the phone for quite a while. When I got back to the microwave and opened the door, a flat, solid circle of rubbery porridge greeted me. Oh dear! I hate porridge like that, but I needed some breakfast, couldn’t spare any more milk and so I told myself I had to eat it!

I had the bright idea of mashing up a banana to mix in with it to make it more moist and soft. It was a good idea, but completely unsuccessful! That porridge was so solid and rubbery that nothing could have been mixed in with it. So I ended up cutting each spoonful of porridge and adding some mashed banana to it. I managed to eat it, but I can’t say I enjoyed it!

So what did I learn? That the wide shallow dish probably isn’t a good idea for porridge. Using less milk than usual is only ok if I eat it quickly after cooking it, and if the phone rings as it’s cooking, I should answer it on the cordless phone and eat it while I’m talking!

Oh well, they say it’s good to learn something new everyday, and that’s quite a few things I’ve learnt today!

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Posted in craft, food, home | No Comments »

Cadbury’s Mini Eggs

Saturday, April 3rd, 2010

Cadbury's Mini Eggs

Since I heard that Cadbury has been bought out by Kraft, I’ve been going round the shops trying to take photos of all the different varieties of chocolate that they make, but it’s proved impossible.

The iconic Cadbury purple packaging is very difficult to take in artificial light. It comes out blue, which doesn’t look right at all! So I’ve given that up, but I love Cadbury’s Mini Eggs. I bought myself some for Easter so that I could record them for posterity, because you never know what might happen. I think Kraft would very foolish to get rid of popular lines like this, which is presumably what they paid for, but you never know.

Didn’t Mini Eggs used to be shiny? They’re sort of dull and unpleasantly dusty now. Does anyone know what’s happened to them and why? They’ve also changed from pretty pastel colours to dull, muddy colours.

I was so disappointed when I opened the pack and poured them out. There they were in a heap of dirty dullness. No pretty blues, and only a dirty, dusky pink. They were very unphotogenic and unappetising looking. So maybe I didn’t need to worry about Kraft spoiling Mini Eggs. Cadbury seems to have done it already themselves!

Still, I had to make the best of it, and so that they would make a more colourful photo, I put them in some of those colourful silicone cake cases.

Happy Easter everyone!

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Posted in food, special occasion | 1 Comment »

Bread pudding

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

I think I’m addicted to bread pudding. It all started in the snow. I hadn’t been able to get into my local town to get any shopping and I was running out of food. I had some very dry, but not mouldy, fruit bread and some semi-skimmed milk that I’d got from the local shop. I don’t like drinking semi-skimmed, it’s much too creamy for me, but as it was all I had, I needed to do something with it.

Stale bread? Milk? Yes I had an egg, I could make bread pudding! So I did, and it was gorgeous! I’d added some more dried fruit and some mixed spice and also cooked a meal and a baked potato while I had the oven on.

I wasn’t in the habit of using the oven because when I worked until 6.00pm, it was far too late to cook something in the oven when I got home. Now I work until 4.00pm, there’s plenty of time to get a meal ready for the oven and mix up a bread pudding to pop in with it.

I’ve tried several different flavours. Chocolate is my favourite. The latest one I made was Ovaltine flavoured and it’s really nice! To look at, it looks as though it could be a heavy old fashioned pudding, but it’s not. It’s light and delicious! I want to try a marmalade flavoured one by spreading the bread with marmalade. Then there’s dates, prunes, oranges, banana, toffee……..

I was always throwing bread away because I don’t eat much of it, but now I don’t need to throw any away – I can use it all up making lovely, tasty, low fat bread puddings.

Let me know if you’d like the recipe.

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Posted in food, home | 1 Comment »

Mince pies

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009

I don’t really like pastry, unless it’s very light and thin and crunchy, like the pie I had on my birthday. But I do like Christmas cake and Christmas pudding and things made with mincemeat. I avoid shop bought mince pies because the pastry can be very stodgy and there’s not usually much mincemeat in them.

But I do like to have one or two mince pies during the Christmas season, as they’re a very Christmassy thing, but I choose them carefully. Yesterday I had the opportunity to have a home made one, my first one this year. I had it warm, and the pastry was lovely and light with a bit of crunch to it. The mincemeat was lovely, very Christmassy.

Now I’ve had my first mince pie of the season, it feels like Christmas. I might have one or two more before the end of the year.

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Celebrating my Birthday

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

Birthday celebrations

I had a lovely day on my Birthday a couple of days ago.

A friend took my out for lunch at a local hotel, and I really enjoyed it. I’ve been to that hotel before for a drink, but I’ve never had a meal there before. I had to work in the morning so it was about 2.15pm when we got there, and they had really stopped serving. But they checked with the kitchen and said they would serve us. We sat in the bar which we had all to ourselves except for the friendly barman and a resident who came in to chat with us. I had Steak and Ale Pie with new potatoes and peas. It was gorgeous! The hotel is high up and we sat by a window where we had amazing views across the valley.

When we’d finished eating, we wandered round the town taking photos. My friend, Jenny, is a photographer too and it was wonderful to be with someone who takes as many photos as I do! For as long as I can remember, Christmas decorations have always appeared in shop windows and in towns in time to celebrate my birthday, and this year it was no different. The men in fluorescent jackets were actually putting up the lights on the big tree as we went past. I always like the glizt and sparkle of Christmassy things, because it’s as though they’ve been put up just for me to celebrate my birthday!!

Before work, another friend took me out for cake and coffee in a lovely little cafe at the back of a gift shop. The shop was full of glitzy Chrismassy things, and I enjoyed browsing as we wandered through, enjoying the sparkle and opulence of things that are fun to look at, but completely unnecessary to life! It was lovely to relax and catch up with my friend while I enjoyed good coffee and coffee and walnut cake. Mary was bemused when I started taking photos of the coffee and cake! I explained to her that I was doing a photo diary of my Birthday. She was ok with that as long as I didn’t take any photos of her!

When I got to work, I was just in time for a meeting. There were about 8 of us there, and when the meeting ended, they all sang Happy Birthday to me, which was lovely!!

I spent the evening with my friends Mary and David. Mary had made the most gorgeous birthday cake for me! It was a fat free swiss roll covered in strawberries, and filled with strawberry yogourt. It was the most delicious cake I’ve ever tasted!! Thank you Mary! I did take some photos of it, but they didn’t come out very well.

I had posted a ‘Happy Birthday’ photo on my Flickr photostream, and I had so many good wishes from Flickr friends!

So I had a wonderful day! Thank you to everyone who helped to make it so special!

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Posted in day out, food, photography, special occasion | 2 Comments »

It’s my birthday!

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009

It's my birthday!

It’s my birthday today!

I like my birthday. I like it being in November when it’s dark long before the shops close, and people are starting to put Christmas decorations out. I had time to wander round my local town yesterday, and noticed that lots of shops had baubles and Christmas trees in their windows. For as long as I can remember, that always happens in time for my birthday. It’s like they’re putting them out especially for me to celebrate!

For years I’ve always taken my birthday off as a holiday and done something special, but for various reasons I’m not able to do that this year. But I’ve got a busy day planned meeting friends and eating out as well as going to work. I’m looking forward to it!

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Posted in day out, food, special occasion | 1 Comment »

Metamorphosis

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

No, I’m not talking about a caterpillar changing into a butterfly or a tadpole into a frog, but my local Supermarket. It’s some time ago now that I heard that the Somerfield chain had been bought by the Co-Op. When I first heard about it, I expected my local Somerfield to be closed and refurbished and then re-opened as a Co-Op.

I quite like Somerfield. I’m used to it. It’s just across the road from where I work, so I call in most days to get a few items. I was expecting to have to go somewhere else when it closed, and then have a new, different shop open in it’s place that I would have to get used to.

But that didn’t happen. It went on being the Somerfield that I was used to and gradually I forgot that it had been bought by the Co-Op. A few weeks ago, I saw one or two Co-Op branded products, and after my initial surprise, I remembered about the take-over. The Co-Op items increased and it was very noticeable that they were better quality at a lower price than the old Somerfield products that they’d replaced.

I’ve never known a shop change slowly from one Company to another before, but I think it’s a really good way to do it. Customers can get used to it gradually without the shop having to be closed. I expect one day soon I’ll walk in to find the assistants’ uniforms have changed to their new brand, and then eventually the sign over the door will change.

I really like the Co-Op. I like the quality of their own brands and the range of foods they have and I like that they have a good range of Fairtade products. I only have access to a very small branch at the moment so I don’t get the benefit of the choice that a large branch would give me. The best Co-Op that I’ve ever shopped in is a big one I’ve used when I was on holiday in Dorset. It has an amazing choice of product and I just enjoy wandering around it looking at what they stock. Hopefully my local Somerfield will continue to metamorphose until one day it’s as good as the one in Dorset.

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Posted in food, life, work | 1 Comment »

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